Maker’s Mess
When I bought Family Tree Maker 2008, it constantly crashed. Telephone and online support representatives had me uninstalling and reinstalling the program, adding various patches. This took me well beyond the time period when I could return it for my money back. The 2009 version has most of the glitches worked out, but is still missing some of the functions of earlier versions. My advice to anyone who wants to try it is to make sure you are prepared to take advantage of the return policy.

One major problem with the later versions of the software is that it won’t allow you to add siblings of someone in the file without first adding a parent. Say, for instance, you read in your great-grandmother’s obituary that she was survived by her brother Frank. You want to add him to your file, even though you still don’t know the names of the parents. Can’t be done. And if you did add Frank in an earlier version of Family Tree Maker, when you pull him into the later versions he’ll no longer be attached as your great-grandma’s sibling; he’ll be free-floating with no discernible relationship to anyone.